Many machines have machine-actuating mechanisms of the type intended to receive an operating card or other machine-operating substrate (e.g., paper currency) for actuating the operation of a machine. In many machines, internal surfaces of the machine-actuating mechanism are spaced apart a distance greater than the permissible thickness of the operating card, to thereby keep the operating card out of contact with those internal surfaces, particularly internal surfaces of sensing mechanism, e.g., surfaces of magnetic sensors, optical lenses and other surfaces defining the internal cavity of the machine actuating mechanism. In many of these machine-actuating mechanisms internal rails are provided to actually support the operating card in a position out of contact with the sensing mechanisms.
Cleaning cards for use in cleaning machine-actuating mechanisms are well known in the art. The commercially available cleaning cards are substantially flat substrates that are intended to closely approximate the dimensions of the machine-operating substrate so that they can be received in the machine-actuating mechanism for the purpose of cleaning internal surfaces thereof. However, if the maximum thickness of a cleaning card that can be accepted in a reading device of a machine is less than the spacing of the internal surfaces to be cleaned, then the cleaning card will not effectively engage those surfaces and will not provide its desired cleaning function. This is particularly troublesome in reading devices wherein the operating card and cleaning card are inserted through a slot into an enclosed machine-actuating mechanism and actually are pulled into, and retained within the enclosed mechanism during the operation and cleaning of the reading device, respectively. In these reading devices, the cleaning card cannot be manually pressed against either of the opposed internal surfaces within the slot, since the user of the cleaning card actually relinquishes control over the position of the cleaning card when it is pulled into the enclosed mechanism.
Cleaning cards having raised surfaces for cleaning or removing foreign objects from internal machine surfaces are known in the prior art, as exemplified by the disclosures in U.S. Pat. No. 6,243,908 (Battle et al.), U.S. Pat. No. 6,107,221 (Nakajima et al.) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,153,964 (Gelardi et al.).
The Battle et al. '908 patent discloses a track clearance card employing a series of tabs which are biased in opposite directions and have free, distal ends. While this type of card structure may be suitable for use in cleaning tracks in certain types of document handling systems, it is not well suited for use in cleaning machine-actuating mechanisms; particularly, machine-actuating mechanisms wherein the cleaning operation requires the cleaning card to move in opposed linear directions during the cleaning operation.
The Nakajima et al. '221 patent discloses a variety of cleaning card structures. The embodiment illustrated in FIGS. 5A-5C includes two curved portions protruding in opposite directions from the central axis of the card and extending continuously from one side edge to the other side edge of said card. This structure has limited applicability, since it is unable to clean protected, internal surfaces of a machine-actuating mechanism that are recessed below protective guard rails of the mechanism. In particular, such protective guard rails will compress the curved portions and thereby prevent those curved portions from engaging the desired internal surfaces to be cleaned.
The Gelardi et al. '964 patent discloses a number of embodiments of a cleaning card, with the preferred embodiments illustrated in the drawings including a stiff backing sheet and a flexible cleaning sheet adhered to selected regions of the backing sheet. The '964 patent states, in the paragraph beginning on line 47 of column 2, that the cleaner can be a single sheet with flaps folded in both directions. In all embodiments described in detail in the drawings the flaps are disposed in rows extending from one side edge to the other side edge. In some of these latter embodiments each row is provided by a single continuous flap. In other embodiments, each row is provided by a continuous flap that is interrupted along its transverse dimension from one side edge to the other side edge by a series of spaced apart cuts. In yet other embodiments of the invention each row of flaps is provided by a series of discrete, spaced-apart tabs having free edges projecting above the general plane of the card. In all of the aforementioned embodiments the flaps in each row all project in the same direction from the central plane of the card. Providing flaps in each row that extend only in a single direction imposes limitations on the cleaning effectiveness of the cards. In addition, providing rows of flaps in the form of spaced apart tabs having free edges imposes limitations on the use of the card, and is not a desirable construction for cleaning cards that are intended to be moved in opposed longitudinal directions during a cleaning operation.
The present invention provides a unique, very versatile solution to the problem of cleaning internal surfaces of a machine-actuating mechanism, and in particular internal surfaces of a sensing mechanism that are spaced further apart from each other more than the maximum thickness of a substrate that can be received within the mechanism. In addition, as will be noted hereinafter, the present invention can be employed in virtually all environments in which conventional cleaning cards have been employed in the past, even in reading devices wherein the prior art cleaning cards actually engage internal surfaces of a sensing mechanism to provide effective cleaning of those surfaces.